It's easy over a period of time to get wrapped up in the larger issues of government and to loose track of the small ones that taken together have just as much impact on whether we have good government or not. It's one of my prime reasons for believing in term limits. Experience allows individuals to gain expertise on a variety of subjects but time in office also dulls the senses toward the minutia that shapes good government.
 
Last night's work session illustrated two of the many small things that almost invisibly shape government. The first was a vote to postpone our first meeting in July. Postponing the meeting will lift a big burden from me personally; however, I voted to not postpone. Postponing the meeting would allow council members and staff to possibly take extended vacation time after the Independence Day weekend. It will also stretch the time between council meetings to four whole weeks and then crams four meetings (two meetings and two work sessions) into just nine days.
 

Postponing the July 5 & 6 meetings to the following week creates the situation of one month between regular meetings and then two in a row. (Work sessions and regular meetings shown.)

In my opinion, we do not meet at our pleasure but on a schedule designed to regularly address the citizens business and addressing the issues of governing the city. It's not an absolute rule which is why members may feel differently. If there was no scheduled business, I'd be happy to not meet. If it's to be able to attend the neighborhood meetings on National Night Out, I'm all thumbs-up. This change is the fourth time in a year that meetings have been postponed for various reasons: to be able to attend November election night events, National Night Out, to give a longer break over Christmas, and this one to allow more vacation. Maybe my sensitivity comes from an earlier council that thought canceling an election was convenient. It's easy to say that a meeting inconveniences "me" but it's much harder to know and understand the inconveniences on applicants and citizens. (Sounds like: I count but you not as much.) Another analogy, since this is trash day for my area, would be Environmental Waste moving collection days to whatever days are more convenient to a driver's desires. We wouldn't appreciate it. Citizens depend on regular, scheduled delivery of services and I don't think the Council gets four passes a year.
 
Another case in point: our regular meeting lasted about 18 minutes last night. I had a couple questions from the audience and stayed a little longer than the other Council members. About 7:30 a man and women came in asking where the meeting was being held. I explained it was over. Then I had to explain their next chance to address the Council, on an issue that was very emotional and time sensitive to them, wouldn't occur for a month.
 
The second item was whether to agree by consensus to re-appoint two board members when their positions expire without posting the positions, or to solicit applications from all interested citizens. In this particular case, the two current members have done a fine job and I'm 99% confident both will be re-appointed. However, there's something wrong with not posting open positions, to not give citizens an opportunity to express their willingness to serve or that think they could do a better job. Of course, I said as much and I also said I thought that's how we had handled such situations in recent years. There was a disagreement whether that was true but, to the best of my memory, it's true.
 
To summarize: Hold meetings for the citizens benefit, not ours, and give citizens every opportunity to participate and contribute, both in meetings and in service. Small details but ones that make for good government.
 
The vote didn't always go my way. We'll postpone the meeting but we will advertise the positions that will soon open...and we'll develop a policy to handle the question in the future.